Ecuadorian Ethnocide and Indigenous Ethnogenesis: Amazonian Resurgence Amidst Andean Colonialism

In the moist tropics of South America, Native Americans -who are all too frequently referred to by Christopher Columbus' term "Indians" - are rapidly disappearing. Current literature documenting the rationality of the native peoples, together with detailed analysis of the processes of modernization and rapid change leading to their physical and cultural destruction, is reminiscent of the work of Friar Bartolome de las Casas. Du­ring the early 16th century this good Friar quite convincingly argued that if native peoples were to survive, some labor force would have to replace them; the argument of native humanity ap­plied to disappearing Indians opened the doors to the large scale African slave trade to the New World. The African impact on the new world expanded, as the native peoples' declined. But even today the nature of the African cultural influence is hotly debated, and often denied.